Paradise Lost Book-1 Summary

 

  PARADISE LOST                          

About the Author:

Birth: 

John Milton was born in Bread Street, London on 9 December 1608,

He was the son of  John Milton (a music Composer) and his wife Sarah Jeffrey. 

Education:

Milton attended St Paul's School in London and Christ's College, Cambridge, where he known as "The Lady of Christ's". 

During his Cambridge years he bacame friends with Edward King, to whom he later dedicated an elegy, 'Lysidas'.

In Cambridge he began the study of Latin and Greek, and the classical languages left an imprint on both his poetry and prose in English (he also wrote in Italian and Latin).

* He was appointed Secretary for Foreign Tongues by the council of State in march 1649.

 

After completing his master's, Milton retire to hammersmith his father's new home.

 

Marriage:

He got married three times:

1. Mary Powell (m. 1642; her death 1652)

2. Katherine Woodcock (m. 1656; her death 1658)

3. Elizabeth Mynshull (m. 1663)

* He was appointed Secretary for Foreign Tongues by the council of State in march 1649.

 

Death:

The year 1652 was a dark period for Milton, since he lost his eyesight Completely and lost his first wife.

He died of gout in November 1674 and was buried in the church of St Giles, Cripplegate.

His Literary Works:

* L' Allegro (1631)

* Il Penseroso (1631)

* Lycidas (1638)

* Poems of Mr. John Milton, Both English and Latin (1645)

* Paradise Lost (1667)

* Paradise Regained (1671)

* Samson Agonists (1671)

 

Political, philosophical and religious Prose:

* Of Reformation (1641)

* Of Education (1644)

* Areopagitica (1644)

* History of Breton (1670)

 

About The Poem:

Paradise Lost is an epic poem  written in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, arranged into twelve books (in the manner of Virgil's Aeneid) with minor revisions throughout. It is considered by critics to be Milton's major work, and it helped solidify his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of his time.

                      The poem concerns the biblical story of the Fall of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Milton's purpose, as stated in Book I, is to "justify the ways of God to men."

Justifying the ways of God,” refers to God’s nature to turn everything from bad to good. God has created the earth, and humans to replace bad angels, and He sent Jesus to redeem the fallen humans. This is exactly the difference between God and Satan, who is an egoist, thinks only of his interests, and vowed to seek vengeance upon God for expelling him from heaven, by converting good to evil. Apparently, God seems to be arbitrary in setting the law, and Satan looks reasonable for being rebellious.

Characters.:

Satan

Called Lucifer in heaven before his disobediance, Satan is one of God's favorite angels until his pride gets in the way and he turns away from God. Satan brings many of heaven's angels with him, however, and reigns as king in hell. He continues an eternal battle with God and goodness for the souls of human beings. Satan, at first, is an angel with a single fault, pride, but throughout the story he becomes physically and morally more and more corrupt.

God

The Absolute, ruler of heaven, creator of earth and all of creation. God is all seeing, though he seems to pay less attention to things further away from his light. He is surrounded by angels who praise him and whom he loves but, when Satan falls and brings many of heaven's population with him, he decides to create a new creature, human, and to create for him a beautiful universe in the hopes that someday humans will join him in heaven. God has a sense of humor, and laughs at the follies of Satan and seems to be a firm and just ruler.

Son of God

God's begotten Son, later to become fully human in the form of Jesus, the Christ. God's Son will continually beat down Satan, first in the three day battle in heaven, then, as Jesus, when he sacrifices himself for the salvation of man. The Son of God is more sympathetic to the plight of mankind and often advocates on behalf of him in front of God.

Holy Spirit

Third of the God/Son Trinity. Although the Holy Spirit does not play a large part in the narrative (leading some critics to think that Milton did not even believe in the Trinity), he is continually referred to as Milton's inspirational "muse" in the writing of the epic. The Holy Spirit is, in fact, the creature through whom the Old and New Testament were written according to Christians, therefore he is the best vehicle from which Milton can draw the truth.

Sin

Daughter of Satan born when Satan first disobeyed God. Satan later rapes Sin and they have Death. The three form the unholy trinity in contrast to God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Sin is sent to hell with Satan and stands guard at hell's gates. She is a horrible looking thing, half serpent, half woman, with hellhounds circling her. She will invade earth and mankind after Satan causes Adam and Eve to fall.

Death

Spawn of Satan and Satan's daughter Sin. He is a dark, gigantic form who guards the gates of hell with Sin. He, too, will reign on earth after Satan causes the Fall. Death, however, will plague not only men and women, but all living creatures on earth down to the smallest plant. Death, as a terminal end, will be defeated when God sends his Son Jesus Christ to earth.

Adam

First created man, father of all mankind. Adam is created a just and ordered creature, living in joy, praising God. Lonely, Adam will ask for a companion and will thereafter feel deep and uncontrollable, though ordered, love for her, named Eve. This love will ultimately get Adam in trouble, as he decides to disobey God rather than leave her. Adam has free will and, by the end of the poem, also has the knowledge of good and evil.

Eve

First created woman, mother of all makind. Eve is rather a fickle and vain woman, easily flattered by Adam and Satan. Her weakness becomes her downfall, as her vanity drives her to disobey God. She loves Adam as well, though the implicaiton is that she loves herself much more.

Raphael

Gentle archangel sent to befriend and warn Adam of the dangers in the Garden. Raphael is traditionally seen as a friendly and sociable angel and, in fact, sits down to eat and gab with Adam for most of an afternoon. Raphael is a gentle guide and appears as a luminous, soft being.

Michael

General in God's army. In contrast to Raphael, Michael is a firm, military type of angel. He is more of an instructor and a punisher than he is a friend and a guide,. He and Gabriel are sent to battle Satan's forces in the heavenly war, and he is sent to evict Adam and Eve from Paradise.

Gabriel

Another archangel who is a general in God's army. He, too, was sent to lead God's forces into battle against Satan and it is he who, with a squadron of angel soldiers, finds Satan in the Garden of Eden the first time.

Abdiel

The only angel who stands up to Satan and his thousands of minions when Satan first suggests rebellion. He is praised as being more courageous than even those who fight in God's army because he stood up in the middle of evil and used words to battle it.

 

Beelzebub

Lord of the Flies, one of the Fallen Angels and Satan's second in command. Beelzebub is the name of one of the Syrian gods mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. He is the first with whom Satan confers when contemplating rebellion and he is the first Satan sees when they are in hell. Beelzebub relies totally on Satan for what he thinks and does. Later, Satan uses Beelzebub as a plant to get hell's council of fallen angels to do what he wants them to do.

Moloch

another fallen angel, one of the generals of Satan's army. Moloch is an authoritarian military angel, who would rather fight and lose battles than be complacent and passive. Victory over God is less important to Moloch than revenge against him.

Belial

a complacent, passive fallen angel. Belial doesn't want to fight. He represents a part of all the fallen angels that secretly wishes God would take them all back.

Mammon

another fallen angel. Mammon thinks that the fallen angels should try to build their own kingdom and make their life as bearable as possible in hell. He is the ultimate compromiser, and, though his compromise is illogical and will not work, the crowd loves him.

 

 

 

Summary: Lines 1–26: The Prologue and Invocation

Milton opens Paradise Lost by formally declaring his poem’s subject: humankind’s first act of disobedience toward God, and the consequences that followed from it. The act is Adam and Eve’s eating of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, as told in Genesis, the first book of the Bible. In the first line, Milton refers to the outcome of Adam and Eve’s sin as the “fruit” of the forbidden tree, punning on the actual apple and the figurative fruits of their actions.

“OF Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit

Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast

Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,

With loss of Eden, till one greater Man

Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,”

 Milton asserts that this original sin brought death to human beings for the first time, causing us to lose our home in paradise until Jesus comes to restore humankind to its former position of purity.

Milton’s speaker invokes the muse, a mystical source of poetic inspiration, to sing about these subjects through him in the following lines:

 

“What in me is dark

Illumin, what is low raise and support;

That to the highth of this great Argument

I may assert Eternal Providence,

And justifie the wayes of God to men.”

 

but he makes it clear that he refers to a different muse from the muses who traditionally inspired classical poets by specifying that his muse inspired Moses to receive the Ten Commandments and write Genesis. Milton’s muse is the Holy Spirit, which inspired the Christian Bible, not one of the nine classical muses who reside on Mount Helicon—the “Aonian mount” of I.15. He says that his poem, like his muse, will fly above those of the Classical poets and accomplish things never attempted before, because his source of inspiration is greater than theirs. Then he invokes the Holy Spirit, asking it to fill him with knowledge of the beginning of the world, because the Holy Spirit was the active force in creating the universe.

Milton’s speaker announces that he wants to be inspired with this sacred knowledge because he wants to show his fellow man that the fall of humankind into sin and death was part of God’s greater plan, and that God’s plan is justified.

Summary: Lines 27–722: Satan and Hell

Immediately after the prologue, Milton raises the question of how Adam and Eve’s disobedience occurred and explains that their actions were partly due to a serpent’s deception. This serpent is Satan, and the poem joins him and his followers in Hell, where they have just been cast after being defeated by God in Heaven.

Satan lies stunned beside his second-in-command, Beelzebub, in a lake of fire that gives off darkness instead of light. Breaking the awful silence, Satan bemoans their terrible position, but does not repent of his rebellion against God, suggesting that they might gather their forces for another attack. Beelzebub is doubtful; he now believes that God cannot be overpowered. Satan does not fully contradict this assessment, but suggests that they could at least pervert God’s good works to evil purposes. The two devils then rise up and, spreading their wings, fly over to the dry land next to the flaming lake. But they can undertake this action only because God has allowed them to loose their chains. All of the devils were formerly angels who chose to follow Satan in his rebellion, and God still intends to turn their evil deeds toward the good.

Once out of the lake, Satan becomes more optimistic about their situation. He calls the rest of the fallen angels, his legions, to join him on land. He says:

“What though the field be lost?
All is not Lost; the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And the courage never to submit or yeild.”

 

 He gathered all the angels and they immediately obey and, despite their wounds and suffering, fly up to gather on the plain. Milton lists some of the more notable of the angels whose names have been erased from the books of Heaven, noting that later, in the time of man, many of these devils come to be worshipped as gods.

Among these are Moloch, who is later known as a god requiring human sacrifices, and Belial, a lewd and lustful god. Still in war gear, these fallen angels have thousands of banners raised and their shields and spears in hand. Even in defeat, they are an awesome army to behold.

Satan’s unrepentant evil nature is unwavering. Even cast down in defeat, he does not consider changing his ways: he insists to his fellow devils that their delight will be in doing evil, not good. In particular, as he explains to Beelzebub, he wishes to pervert God’s will and find a way to make evil out of good. In the following lines he says:

”Here at least

We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built

Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:

Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce

To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:

Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n.”

 

Here he says that, now they can make their own rule and and can reign in hell and it would be better to serve God in Heaven.

 It is not easy for Satan to maintain this determination; the battle has just demonstrated God’s overwhelming power, and the devils could not even have lifted themselves off the lake of fire unless God had allowed it. God allows it precisely because he intends to turn their evil designs toward a greater good in the end. Satan’s envy of the Son’s chosen status led him to rebel and consequently to be condemned. His continued envy and search for freedom leads him to believe that he would rather be a king in Hell than a servant in Heaven. Satan’s pride has caused him to believe that his own free intellect is as great as God’s will. Satan remarks that the mind can make its own Hell out of Heaven, or in his case, its own Heaven out of Hell.

“The mind is its own place and in itself

can make a heaven of hell,

 

a hell of heaven…”

 

Satan addresses his comrades and acknowledges their shame in falling to the heavenly forces, but urges them to gather in order to consider whether another war is feasible. Instantly, the legions of devils dig into the bowels of the ground, unearthing gold and other minerals. With their inhuman powers they construct a great temple in a short time. It is called Pandemonium (which means “all the demons” in Greek), and the hundreds of thousands of demonic troops gather there to hold a summit. Being spirits, they can easily shrink from huge winged creatures to the smallest size. Compacting themselves, they enter Pandemonium, and the debate.